Uttarakhand State BJP leaders are a worried lot with the party’s national president Amit Shah visiting the State on Sunday to make them account for the string of electoral losses the saffron party has suffered in the recent past.
The BJP high command is supposed to have taken things seriously as the party has been licking its wounds with humiliating by-poll defeats eerily haunting it.
Things are all the more galling for the ruling party in the Centre as the crushing by-poll defeats when juxtaposed against the startling 2013 lok Sabha sweep looks doubly disappointing. Shah is supposed to address a meeting of the party leaders and workers — MPs, MlAs, district BJP presidents, general secretaries, district Panchayat presidents and vice-presidents and others - at Survey of India auditorium in Dehradun that day.
Things are really ominous for the party which presided over the creation of the State in 2000 and ruled the State for several terms. It was crushed in several Assembly segments many of which were deemed as BJP redoubts. Doiwala and Someshwar can be cited as instances. By-elections to these two constituencies were necessitated after BJP MlAs Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank and Ajay Tamta had quit after being elected to the lok Sabha from Haridwar and Almora parliamentary constituencies, respectively.